5 November 2009Kindergarten Thoughts

I am unequivocally opposed to the practice of arranged marriages, but yesterday I suddenly understood why adults in past and certain present cultures are so tempted to betroth their children at a very young age.

One of my most ADHD, good-natured, hot-tempered, intelligent boys was sitting next to one of my most temperamental, queen-bee, intelligent girls. They were alternately getting along famously and getting in fights. Looking at them, I couldn’t help but picture them grown up and married. I thought about her cunning, demanding, dominate personality would match up with his impulsive, insistent, dominant personality and smiled to myself. I probably also smiled on the outside.

Then I looked at the other side of the room, where two of my other very intelligent students were sitting together. He’s an anxious, hypochondriac perfectionist. She’s easygoing, off-in-her-own-world, but somehow gets everything right anyway. One day during the second week of school I noticed him lying on her shoulder and instantly assumed that she would be bothered by this, since she’s not touchy-feely type. When I saw her face, though, I realized that she was totally fine with it. One day during the third week of school, I saw her with her arms around him from behind, rocking both of them back and forth. This is a game that a lot of kids in my class play, but mostly it’s the more outgoing ones who do it. I figured that he would be bothered, since he’s generally very reserved, but when I went up to them I realized that he was grinning and having a great time. They’re both so quiet and odd that it’s far too tempting to imagine them together as grown-ups. It would make a great Indie film.

None of these kids play together on the playground, which puts a bit of a damper on my future fantasies, but still. When I consider that a big part of my adulthood has been spent trying to achieve the unselfconciousness that childhood bestows so naturally, it is very tempting to think that small children who get along well would also get along well after that awkward phase of adolescents and that finding-yourself-again phase of young adulthood.